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Comment by ojnabieoot | Hacker News Reader

A big part of that was that there were simply far less universities in the mid-late 1800s than there are now, so there was a demand - this is particularly true for the West Coast. Likewise, both Cornell and MIT, though private and philanthropist-funded, were also land grant universities, and part of a deliberate policy (starting with Lincoln) to increase the number of US universities, along with providing a more "practical" baccalaureate. In general the post-Civil War era in the US was a period of significant educational reform and expansion at all levels.

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don't you think the demand still exists today ? the economy seems to be in ever increasing need of a highly skilled workforce, in addition to reskilling existing ones.

You could argue that we could use better schools or schools that have more of a focus on subjects needed by a modern workforce. But there's no real shortage of colleges and universities. Yes, existing universities come with lots of legacy entanglements (which can be good as well as bad) but for the most part you're probably better off investing in those schools than tearing down and starting from scratch on a prairie somewhere.

When a school rejects qualified applicants because there are too many, doesn't that indicate a shortage of that kind of school?

No, it might indicate a lack of demand for that particular qualification.

No, because school prestige is a positional good. This is like saying you can address the shortage of Olympic gold medals by just manufacturing tons of them.

But the point of school prestige, at least in tech, is to assess skill. If the available pool of raw talent is larger than can be funneled through prestigious schools, then there is a need for more schools.

Again, just substitute the words.

But the point of Olympic medals is to assess skill. If the available pool of talented athletes is larger than the number of gold medals, then there is a need for more gold medals.

brilliant analogy

I think the point people are missing is that you don't need more gold medals. Rather, the people "hiring" athletes need to recognize that for many purposes the difference between gold and silver and bronze and first and second runner up to bronze is trivial and possibly arbitrary, especially in situations where outcomes are not nearly as easily quantified as in an athletic competition.

Also gold medals aren't being used as hiring criteria for technical careers.

People don't go to these universities for prestige's sake, but for what prestige gets them. It's not really about the gold medal (for the vast majority), it's about being an elite athlete (i.e., being generally healthy and physically capable of impressive feats) and having the security to practice the discipline you love. Knowing that, you would build a network of schools that meet the full need of potential elite athletes, rather than rely on a handful of clubs and coaches. Which is exactly what we (and China, and the Soviet Union) did.

People derive value from a higher education beyond just prestige. A 100% prestige item like a medal is different.

True, but there is also the skills you learn, which are in unlimited supply.

Different fields have different balance between these two things.

It’s not obvious this smallness serves any functional purpose. Two (U of T, Mcgill) Canadian schools have extremely good international reputations and serve more than the entire Ivy League. U of T alone educates more than the whole Ivy League.

http://induecourse.ca/the-bottleneck-in-u-s-higher-education...

>a shortage of that kind of school

"That kind of school" is (call it) a Top 10 school in a given field. And there is always going to be a shortage of slots at Top 10 schools whether you have 1,000 schools or 10,000. What potentially makes sense is investments in relevant subject areas in schools that aren't in the Top 10 but are in the Top 100 so they're functionally less distinguishable--except in prestige perhaps--though arguably that's already the case. In the US, cost aside, a qualified applicant can already get into a "good" school.

There may be a problem once you look at the social and economic structures that encourage students to apply to these schools.

For schools, like Harvard and Yale, isn't a large part of the value they provide to students derived from the school's network of alumnus and the prestige the school's name holds? If so, don't these schools derive a large part of the value they offer from their exclusivity?

There may be a subtle distinction between a demand for university-trained workers and a demand for universities. The latter produce the former. However, more universities may not be the as efficient a way to train more people as expanding existing universities.

It depends what percentage of a college education you ascribe to "vocational skills" and what amount is "signalling".

The Morrill Land-Grant Act was, in part, a response for the need for new skills of an industrialized economy.

However, if you believe schools are mostly about credentials and signalling, online learning institutes often have a large accreditation hurdle. E.g., it's generally preferred to have an MIT degree rather than a list of MIT MOOCs taken because there is a certain amount of elite signalling that comes with the degree even if the skills learned are the exact same

> E.g., it's generally preferred to have an MIT degree rather than a list of MIT MOOCs taken because there is a certain amount of elite signalling that comes with the degree even if the skills learned are the exact same

From my perspective, it is also much preferable to have an actual degree from Plymouth State University, or even an online degree from Southern New Hampshire University, than a MOOC "degree" from MIT, and I strongly disagree that the "skills are the same" in practice, evne if that might be true in principle. It's not just about elite signaling, there are huge differences in rigor, workload, and personal responsibility with an actual university education versus a MOOC.

MOOCs are fine to supplement a bachelor's education, but if I saw a resume that only had edX/etc, they'd better have good work experience or a great project portfolio.

You are right and thank you for clarifying. Skills may only be equivalent “in theory”.

In my experience, this even holds true for the same degree within the same institution across different timelines. There’s other pressures (financial, political, etc.) that can drive rigor and curriculum to change. That is at least part of why accreditation is important; it’s supposed to provide some third part vetting that the product is meeting minimum standards. (Again, in theory).

I think it will get much more interesting if online courses can fix the quality/accreditation disparity. With colleges no longer having a monopoly on education that’s still their strongest chip to play

> the economy seems to be in ever increasing need of a highly skilled workforce

This is a claim I've seen repeated often but have never seen any real evidence to back up. It seems more like "we need skilled workers but don't want to pay them skilled wages." Regardless the problem (in the US) is not an absence of universities like it was in the 19th century - financial barriers to bachelors degrees are significant but that is not a symptom of low supply and high demand.

So no, I don't think the demand exists (in the US) today, at all.

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